Three Accounts of March:
New York Daily News
Vanessa Foster
Gender Advocacy Network
A Peace March
Turns Violent
Cops nab 120 in protest
of anti-gay crimes
By HENRI E. CAUVIN, BILL EGBERT
and BILL HUTCHINSON
NY Daily News Staff Writers
Thousands of protesters held a surprise march
down Fifth Ave. last night to condemn the slaying
of a gay Wyoming college student — clashing
with cops and causing traffic chaos at the height of
rush hour.
The 6 p.m. event outside The Plaza hotel drew more
than 4,000 demonstrators, who caught police off-guard
when they decided to take to the streets.
The unexpectedly large
demonstration stretched into
more than three hours of chaos.
Mayor Giuliani said up to 120
people were arrested.
An unknown number of
protesters were injured and at
least one cop suffered a hand
injury, police said.
"We did not expect them to go into the streets," said
First Deputy Commissioner Patrick Kelleher. "And
once they started to disrupt traffic and endanger the
safety of others, we were forced to make arrests."
Organizers billed the event as a chance to express
"public outrage over the murder of Matthew Shepard,"
the 21-year-old University of Wyoming student slain
earlier this month.
They held up photographs of the slain man and
shouted "Stop the hate!" as many of their cohorts were
put in plastic handcuffs and carted off in city buses.
Cops in riot gear quickly arrested 40 people, mostly
organizers who had advertised the rally by word of
mouth or the Internet but did not get city permits.
Demonstration leaders said they
did not tell cops because they
did not want to be rebuffed.
"We couldn't take that," said
organizer Sara Pursley, 29.
Police, however, said they
learned of the event in advance
through flyers organizers had
posted throughout the city. But cops admitted they
were anticipating only a few hundred demonstrators.
Last night, Giuliani said from New Hampshire that
while the protest was for a "very worthy cause,"
organizers were wrong for going behind the city's back.
"This appears to have been a spontaneous march, and
it appears to be one we would have granted a permit
for," Giuliani said. "They would have been granted a
permit if they had given the police a day or two
notice."
The demonstration came nearly four months after cops
were caught by surprise by a protest by 40,000
construction workers, who paralyzed midtown and
clashed with cops.
After most of the leaders of
yesterday's march were quickly taken
away in handcuffs, protesters
pounding drums and tambourines and
carrying vigil candles kept marching
down Fifth Ave.
Several protesters carried a brown
coffin on their shoulders, and many
demanded the passage of a hate-crimes bill in New
York. There has been a spate of anti-gay violence in
the city, particularly in Greenwich Village, in recent
weeks.
Cops feared the demonstration would reach the New
York Hilton, where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
was speaking. But protesters didn't go to the heavily
guarded hotel, at Sixth Ave. and 53rd St.
As NYPD brass called in reinforcements from every
precinct in the city, thousands of people spilled onto
Fifth Ave., blocking traffic and chanting "Whose
streets? Our streets!"
At 43rd St., helmeted cops stood by as protesters
stopped for a 15-minute vigil. But just south of 34th
St., cops in riot shields lined up shoulder to shoulder in
the street.
Protesters shouted "Shame!" at the officers, and some
tried to push through, but they were forced back by
cops thrusting out their nightsticks.
The demonstrators moved in unison downtown, where
they were challenged by police on horseback.
Demonstrators screamed in terror, and some of the
horses began to trample into the crowd.
Protesters began hurling rocks and bottles at the cops,
hitting at least one officer in the helmet and striking
several horses. Some demonstrators accused cops of
unnecessarily using pepper spray.
Many protesters stood on cars and chanted at the
officers, "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, NYPD go away!"
Blood ran down the forehead of protester Peter
Notman, 38, who paid the price for kneeling in front of
a charging horse.
"I was assaulted by New York's Finest," Notman said.
Another protester, Ruth Finkelstein, screamed in pain
as emergency workers treated her leg. "I was trampled
by a horse," she said. "I'm furious that we don't have
the right to assembly in our own city."
About four hours after the protest began, police had
herded hundreds of protesters into Madison Square
Park.
With Martin Mbugua, Austin Fenner, Alice McQuillan,
Lisa Rein, Marty Rosen and Paul H.B. Shin.
Other Accounts:
Stonewall II:
Police Turn Violent As 5,000 Take to Streets
Sylvia Rivera Arrested Once Again
By Vanessa Edwards Foster
NEW YORK, NY "It was Stonewall Two!" said one witness describing police
response to the memorial march and vigil held to remember Matthew Shepard.
Writer Randolfe Wicker, of New York’s GayToday, reported seeing “police
brutality up close, beatings, clubbings, arm-twistings as well as
numerous arrests.
The marchers had gathered to protest recent hate crimes
and the violent homophobic moods preached by hate-group-fundamentalist
"Christians" such as Rev. Fred Phelps' God Hates Fags. However, the City
of New York refused the vigil holders a parade permit. Police initially
expected no more than 200 marchers, but were quickly overwhelmed as a
giant crowd estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 surged down Fifth Avenue
after gathering in front of the Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Their
original plan had been to march down 5th Avenue from 59th to 25th Street
to conduct the candlelight vigil at Madison Square Park, but that plan
went awry.
The crowd, carrying candles and signs saying "Matthew Shepard:
Another Death Caused by Homophobia!" began marching down 5th Avenue. As
the crowd grew, the police became alarmed. At one point, they apparently
warned the marchers to stay out of the street as they marched. Silvia
Rivera, a Stonewall Era veteran, was marching with a crowd that then began
chanting "The Streets Belong to the People!" As vast numbers of lesbians
and gays overstepped the sidewalks, a phalanx of law officers set upon
them.
Ms. Rivera, kicked by police, was among the first of those arrested.
Anti-Violence Project members handed out silver whistles which were later
blown loudly by protestors to thwart police when they tried to communicate
alarm on walkie-talkies. The marchers, containing themselves to the
sidewalk, continued on. The police were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers,
but decided to take control. At one point the crowd was directed west
toward 6th Avenue. Police attempted to blockade the crowd from 6th Avenue,
but crowds managed to avoid the barricades by detouring through a
construction site. Traffic on the Avenue of the Americas (6th) was brought
to a complete standstill.
After police began heavy-handedly arresting some
of the marchers, march organizers directed the crowd back toward 5th
Avenue again. Police had decided to take a stand again and were lined up
at 42nd and 5th Avenue, so organizers linked arms again and directed the
masses to return west yet again at 43rd Street.
"That's when it got
ugly," Wicker said. "All exits were closed. Five thousand people were
trapped on 43rd near 6th Avenues...[organizers] sat down holding hands.
That's when police on horseback marched into the crowd clubbing and
trampling and arresting people. We were pinned like cattle for about 45
minutes."
At this point the marchers were divided, but approximately 80%
went back to 5th Avenue and continued downtown stopping all mid-town
traffic. At about 8:30 that evening, the crowd arrived at the site of the
candlelight vigil – Madison Square Park – even without a speaker system,
and having most of their scheduled speakers arrested. Some of the notable
arrests included Ms. Rivera (one of the instigators at Stonewall); Leslie
Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues; and lesbian poet and activist
Minnie Bruce Pratt.
News coverage by the media was mixed, with the CBS
affiliate slanting the story towards the police version and the NBC and
FOX channels spotlighting the misbehavior of the boys in blue. While this
was certainly not a fitting tribute to the memory of Matthew Shepard, it’s
a sad reminder of how far we all have yet to go.
Eyewitness: They Were Brutal
From Gender Advocacy
Internet News (GAIN):
At approximately 7:30 this evening I received
a call from one of my skater friends named Snake who had just seen
Sylvia Rivera beaten with clubs, kicked, and dragged to a police vehicle
on her face for kneeling with representatives of the Lesbian and Gay
Anti-Violence project on Fifth Ave at approximately 59th St. while other
cops shredded her Stonewall flag. I heard the police beat and arrest
Snake as he was speaking to me from a pay telephone near the site of
this act of extreme police brutality. Locally known Puerto
Rican activist Marisella Guzman, who has given me an exclusive taped
eyewitness account not only witnessed the arrest but has taken
photographs which will be developed and available for the press within
the next few hours. According to Ms. Guzman, with corroborating
eyewitness testimony from Stonewall Veteran and Gay Activist Alliance
founder Randy Wicker, after this arrest the crowd, by now 6000 strong and growing proceeded down Fifth Avenue towards Times Square, switching at
one point to Sixth Ave. temporarily blocking both Avenues.
As the crowd grew to an estimated 9000 people half again that number of
cops arrived with buses, scooters, horses and a large squad in full riot
gear (helmets, clubs, etc) charged the crowd, indiscriminately clubbing
people including Maura Baily of the Anti-Violence Project. Ms Guzman and
Mr. Wicker reported that Leslie Feinberg and Minnie Bruce Pratt were
involved in the melee, and it was later confirmed by Workers World
reporter Kristiana T'omas that Leslie Feinberg was arrested. Sylvia
Rivera also was arrested, beaten and is to be arraigned at 1 Police
Plaza at 10am tomorrow morning (Tuesday). People who were attempting
to comply with police orders to disperse were still being arrested.
Randy Wicker says that this is the worst violence he has seen in any
demonstration since Stonewall itself. As an editorial comment,
the AVP was one of the sponsors of this March in full co-operation with
its director, New York City Council Democratic candidate Christine
Quinn. Council member and State Senate candidate publicly supported this
march. The unspeakable violence that occurs tonight represents nothing
less than Mayor Giuliani, a Republican allowing his notoriously violent,
racist and homophobic police department to assault what was essentially
a peaceful political funeral, intended to promote support for an
anti-hates crime bill and led by mainstream Lesbian and Gay Democrats.
There is only one applicable word for this kind of behaviour. This is
Fascism, pure and simple. Chelsea Elisabeth Goodwin co-chair
Metropolitan Gender Network - 30 - Gender Advocacy
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